Dear Posse,
 
As I awakened on Sunday morning, 11.15.09, I heard the news broadcast about 5 year-old Shaniya Davis, missing from her home in Fayetteville, North Carolina since 11.10.09.   I went to bed the night before knowing I would begin a Posse letter about human trafficking the following day, and I was startled back to that realization when the morning news clicked on and this was the first story I heard.
 
Shaniya's mother has been charged with human trafficking and child abuse involving prostitution. The Fayetteville Observer cited from arrest documents that Davis "knowingly provided Shaniya Davis with the intent that she be held in sexual servitude" and "permitted an act of prostitution."   On the day of Shaniya's disappearance a surveillance camera recorded a man carrying her into a hotel room.  He has been charged in her kidnapping.  Shaniya's body was found on Wednesday, November 18, 2009.
 
THE FATHERS HEART
 
About 7 or 8 years ago the Lord began to speak to me about human trafficking.  He has reminded me often about this heinous crime and of His great concern for the ones so horribly abused by being kidnapped and trafficked.  As I was driving in a light rain through Imperial County, CA in February of 2004, I heard faint sounds that, when I focused on them, I understood were the sounds of trafficked children crying.  That haunting sound has never left me.
 
This misunderstood subject is on the Lord's heart.  The November Charisma magazine features an article entitled, Stop Child Slavery Now.  The current periodical from Point Loma Nazarene University in San Diego features the articles, Modern Day Slavery... "Human trafficking is a heinous crime with highly organized and elusive perpetrators.  The time to act for freedom is now"... and Beauty for Ashes... "Heidi Hermann's experience fighting human trafficking has enabled her to see the hope in the darkness."
 
British actress Emma Thompson recently made the round of talk shows to tell about her service with the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime and how that led to her work with victims of human trafficking.
 
Over the past several years some significant documentaries have been produced regarding the plight of trafficking victims.  Lucy Liu has produced a film called "Red Light" about children sold into the sex trade in Cambodia.
 
In 2006 a local prayer team was on an assignment when one of the ladies told us she kept getting the word "pinon."  We all looked around for a pinon tree, and listened for any clue why the Lord would be highlighting that word.  That evening I turned on the news and heard the announcement that a man named Paul Pinon had been hired to coordinate the El Paso Human Trafficking Task Force.  The intercessor who received that word made contact with Mr. Pinon and began praying for him.
 
As I waited for an appointment a few days ago, I picked up the November 23 edition of People magazine and was surprised to see a picture of Amber DuBois on the cover.  Amber (14) was kidnapped in front of her school on my birthday, February 13, 2009.  Her parents spoke at the Preventing Abuse conference in LA last September.  That day I put on a Bring Amber Home bracelet and have not taken it off.  According to People (and Amber's father) the recent discovery of Jaycee Lee Dugard after her disappearance 18 years ago has brought hope to many families of missing children. 
 
A pastor was invited to lead us in prayer for Amber at the conference.  Before praying, he told about his 11 year-old niece's kidnapping in northern California.  Miraculously, an FBI agent heard her story and thought some of the information sounded like a case he was working.  Within two weeks, the pastor's niece was rescued from a home in San Francisco, along with other girls, but not before she had been raped 60 times.  When he shared that part of the story, Amber's mother fled the room in tears.  Later she told us she couldn't bear to think of what her daughter might have gone through in the 7 months since her disappearance.  We were blessed to have Amber's father address us two weeks later at Border School in San Diego.

Father, you do not dismiss the prayers of the desperate, those filled with
grief and disappointment.
Psalm 102:17-22 NIV .. "He will respond to the prayer of the destitute; He will not despise their plea...from heaven He viewed the earth, to hear the groans of the prisoners; and release those condemned to death."
 
SLAVERY HAS NOT BEEN ABOLISHED
 
While most Americans believe that the Emancipation Proclamation and the conclusion of the American Civil War ended slavery in the United States, this crime still exists here today.  Slavery, now called human trafficking, is sickeningly prevalent across the world after nearly a half-millennium.  The victims worldwide, as faceless and voiceless as their predecessors over the centuries, number close to 30 million (27,000,000 - UNICEF 2003 figures). 
 
DEFINITIONS
 
Sex Trafficking: The recruiting, transportation or obtaining of a person by force for the purpose of a commercial sex act.
 
Human Trafficking: The recruiting, harboring, transporting or obtaining of a person through the use of force, fraud or coercion to subject a person to involuntary servitude, debt bondage or slavery.
 
Human Smuggling implies the voluntary movement of undocumented immigrants.  Some trafficking victims begin as voluntarily being smuggled and end up being held involuntarily against their will.
 
Both are illegal.  Human Trafficking is a crime against a person, and Human Smuggling is a crime against a border.
 
HUMAN TRAFFICKING HAS MANY FORMS
 
The myriad forms of modern-day slavery present an elusive target for authorities.  Victims are forced into labor exploitation such as:
 
Prostitution/exotic dancing/porn industry
Domestic servitude, (women/children kept as maids or nannies)
Nail Salons (some girls forced to work; back rooms can be used for brothels)
Restaurants (all you can eat for $5.99 can be done if workers are not paid),
Sweatshops (you might purchase a "knock-off" made by child/slave labor),
Factories (I have seen pictures of slave-laborers beaten to work faster) 
Agricultural work, construction or other hard labor
 
Victims are commonly offered jobs in other countries.  They are often lured to the United States, for example, under false pretenses and promised the "American Dream."  Then their papers are taken from them until they "work off" transportation and expensive food and housing.
 
Perpetrators use different methods to keep their victims enslaved:
Force-beatings, rape, confinement
Fraud-false offers of employment, marriage, a better life
Coercion-threats against the victim or family members, debt-bondage, psychological abuse, threats to turn the victim over to law enforcement
 
Trafficking victims are moved frequently to keep them disoriented and to prevent them from becoming comfortable enough to ask someone for help.

Zechariah 2:13  "BE SILENT, ALL FLESH, before the Lord, for He is aroused from His holy habitation!"

Father, quiet our flesh, our human reactions and emotions.  Let us stand
before you silently, waiting on You. You are taking action. We want to hear
You clearly when You speak, or move as the wind or make a whistle.
 
A FEW FACTS
 
A trafficking operation can be run by one person or by organized crime.  Human trafficking is the 2nd largest organized crime in the world, after drugs.  Drug cartels traffic in humans because of the huge amount of money to be made.  Human trafficking is the fastest growing crime in the world.  Drugs and people are viewed as one and the same: a source of profit.
 
Every year an estimated 800,000 persons are trafficked worldwide, with 20,000 brought into the United States.  80% are women and children.  70% of the women and children end up in the sex trade.  15% is labor trafficking.
 
150,000-300,000 people are prostituted each year in the U.S.  Poor young girls who come to the U.S. voluntarily are often lured into prostitution.  The general ages of prostitutes are 8 to 19, but some are younger.
 
Human trafficking spreads diseases such as AIDS. 
 
Father, protect all those on whom the evil eye may fall.
Proverbs 28:22  "A man with an evil eye hastens after riches, and does not
consider that poverty will come upon him."

MINDSET OF VICTIMS
 
Victims are taught by their traffickers to distrust outsiders, especially law enforcement.  They have a sense of fear and/or distrust toward the government and police because they are afraid they will be deported.  While many of these victims are women and children who have been beaten and/or raped, their current situation may still be better that where they came from. 

In some cases, victims come from countries where law enforcement officials have reputations for corruption.  They believe things are the same here as in their home country.  Victims may be completely unaware of their rights or may have been intentionally misinformed about their rights in this country.
 
Sometimes they feel that it is their fault they are in this situation.  As a coping or survival skill, they may develop loyalties and positive feelings toward their traffickers and may even try to protect them from authorities. 
 
Many victims do not self-identify as victims.  They also do not see themselves as people who are homeless or as drug addicts who rely on shelters or assistance.  Victims may not appear to need social services because they have a place to live, food to eat, medical care and what they think is a paying job.
 
The victims may fear not only for their own safety but also for that of their families in their home countries.  Some traffickers threaten that they will harm their victims' families if the victims report their situation to, or cooperate with, law enforcement.
 
PORN
 
At the Preventing Abuse Conference in LA we heard a dramatic presentation by former porn actress Shelly Lubben.  Now a committed Christian, Shelley's presentation included pictures of young, attractive porn actors who died of disease or suicide.  She told of the horrible aspects of the porn industry, including the proliferation of disease and personal destruction.  Besides learning that California is the only state where porn can legally be produced, we heard what is being done to legally address the porn industry. 
 
Another speaker, the CEO of CRTEC, Center to Restore Trafficked and Exploited Children, told us of a horrifying experience.  After a new computer system was installed in their offices, they thought they had all the protection they needed in place.  Moments after the system was up and running his wife phoned him to come to her office.  She and another employee held a file folder over the screen to hide the images until Ric arrived, and immediately he shut everything down.  For just a couple of seconds he saw pictures of a man penetrating a baby, and heard the baby's painful screams.  With significant effort, the Lord healed this dear man from the horrible sights and sounds, but it had a profound impact on him.
 
There are 4.2 million porn websites (12% of the internet), and 100,000 sites offer illegal child porn.  Forty million U.S. adults regularly visit porn sites.  Child porn is the fastest growing porn on the Internet.  
 
On Nov. 5, a 64 year-old man was arrested in what police describe as "the largest child-pornography seizure ever in El Paso."  Though investigators were still counting, the number of images was expected to surpass 40,000.  It was initially reported they "found 34,500 pornographic images involving sexual penetration of infants, young girls and boys, dated back to the 70's.  As technology changed and progressed, he changed and progressed."  This man was not a registered sex offender.  
 
PIED PIPER OF PEDOPHILES
 
According to Fox News, an Arizona man nicknamed "the Pied Piper of Pedophiles" is one of three Americans arrested for allegedly traveling to Cambodia to molest children.  Retired engineer Jack Louis Sporich, 74, was classified as one of California's most dangerous sex offenders in the 1990's, when he spent nine years in prison for molesting more than 500 young boys since the 1960's.  He was released from a state mental hospital in 2004 after jurors couldn't agree on whether he was at risk of committing more sex crimes against children.  He moved into a luxury condo in Sedona, Arizona.  Authorities say he also built a mansion in Cambodia, where he was charged with indecent acts against minors in a case involving four boys, ages 9-13.  Sporich and two other convicted sex offenders arrived in Los Angeles after they were caught in a sting dubbed "Operation Twisted Traveler," a crackdown on Americans who go overseas to have sex with children.  He faces 30 years in prison in the United States, but only three years in Cambodia.
 
On a bizarre note, there are cases in which innocent people have been branded as pedophiles after someone stumbled onto porn placed on their computer through a virus.  After spending $250,000 on legal fees (liquidating savings, mortgaging home and selling a car), an inspection for one man's defense revealed his laptop was severely infected.  It was programmed to visit as many as 40 child porn sites per minute.  One Associated Press article stated, "Pedophiles can exploit virus-infected PC's to remotely store and view their stash without fear they'll get caught.  Pranksters or someone trying to frame you can tap viruses to make it appear that you surf illegal Web sites."
 
VICTIMS PROTECTION ACT
 
The Victims Protection Act of 2002 requires the State Department to report annually to Congress with an assessment on human trafficking.  About 2.5 million people are involved in forced labor as a result of trafficking, and 161 countries - on every continent and in every type of economy - are affected, according to a senior U.N. official.  In my files are many articles exposing the international slave trade, but the purpose of this letter is to bring awareness to the stain of slavery in the United States of America. 

Father, we do not want to be ignorant but...ask to know Your thoughts.
Micah 4:12  "But they do not know the thoughts of the Lord nor do they
understand His counsel; for He will gather them like sheaves to the
threshing floor."
Amos 4:13b  " ..Who declares to man what His thought is."
 
BROTHELS IN AUSTIN AND OKLAHOMA CITY
 
Women smuggled into the U.S. from Mexico, Central and South American countries were held in indentured servitude and forced to work in prostitution houses catering to undocumented workers in a multi-state prostitution ring which included Austin, Texas, and Oklahoma City.
 
SEATTLE AND PORTLAND
 
Investigators broke a highly organized national prostitution network connected to an international sex-trafficking ring smuggling Asian women into the U.S. in shipping containers, some to work in Seattle or Portland brothels.
 
COLORADO
 
A Saudi held an Indonesian woman as a slave in Denver for four years.
 
SOUTH FLORIDA
 
300,000 of Haiti's poor children, mostly girls, are given or sold by their parents to wealthier families to work in exchange for food, shelter and the promise of school, but they often end up victims of physical and sexual abuse.  For 6 years in Miami, one Haitian teen slept on a rolled-up mattress on the dining room floor and bathed in the back yard with a garden hose.  She washed dishes, made beds and cooked for a family that beat her and hid her in a closet when visitors arrived.  She never went to school.  A Miami schoolteacher took this girl from an orphanage her mother owned in Haiti.
 
In 1999 a 12 year-old came forward with an appalling story about being held as a Broward County couple's household servant and a sex slave for their son. 
 
NEW HAVEN, CONNECTICUT
 
Twelve Guatemalans claimed they were taken from North Carolina to Connecticut involuntarily.  Forced to sleep on the floors of filthy apartments, they worked 80 hour weeks for less than $3.75 an hour.  Their passports were confiscated, and they were threatened with arrest or deportation.
 
OHIO
 
Ohio is a nexus point, according to Freedom Center curator Terrie Puckett.  The boats come into Toledo, and then traffickers use the conveniently criss-crossing nearby Interstate Highways 70, 71 and 75 to send their human cargo throughout the whole country.
  
KANSAS CITY
 
Giant Labor Solutions and two other metro-area companies lured hundreds of foreigners to the city with promises of good jobs and a chance to live the American dream, then turned them into slaves, fanning them out to housekeeping jobs in hotels and other businesses in 14 states while forcing them to live, sometimes 8 at a time, in small apartments for which they were charged exorbitant rent.  Most were in the country illegally and were threatened with deportation.
 
LAREDO
 
A few years ago, for her role in a border baby-selling ring, a 54 year-old woman pleaded no contest to her indictment for sale and purchase of a child, unlawful transport, and giving pregnant women a dangerous drug to induce labor.  She went to prison for 8 years (sadly, to run concurrently) for each sale or purchase of a child.  She apparently misled women into signing adoption papers and arranged for their illegal crossing into the U.S., bringing them across the Rio Grande in inner tubes and hiding them in Laredo.
 
WACO
 
A couple was sentenced to prison on charges of forced labor and transporting an undocumented immigrant for smuggling a 12 year-old girl from Mexico after agreeing to pay the mother $10 and send her $50 per month for her daughter's babysitting services.
 
EL PASO
 
A research assistant from Uzbekistan, working at the University of Texas at El Paso, and his wife were arrested for bringing 3 young women from Uzbekistan and forcing them work as topless dancers at El Paso strip clubs and turn over all their earnings.
 
SAN ANTONIO
 
A federal grand jury indicted 5 people accused of sex trafficking of girls for obtaining two minors (from Mexico) to engage in commercial sex acts and with using force, fraud and coercion to make the two girls and another woman engage in commercial sex acts.
 
HOUSTON
 
Four Mexican citizens were indicted in Houston for running a sex-trafficking ring that forced undocumented female immigrants into prostitution.
 
TEXAS
 
Twenty percent of identified trafficking victims nationwide have been found in Texas, according to the Texas Association Against Sexual Assault.
 
EAST COAST CENTER FOR SEX TRAFFICKING
 
Immigrant sex rings have been broken across the Carolinas.  Charlotte, NC has become a center for sex trafficking along the east coast, though local and federal authorities are not sure how extensive the Charlotte sex rings have become.  In April, Jorge Flores Rojas was convicted of trafficking in Charlotte.  His ring brought in hundreds of young women each year to work as prostitutes.  Flores picked up vans full of 8-10 young women each week outside a McDonald's restaurant in Charlotte, where other traffickers brought them.  He also smuggled girls directly from Latin America.  He favored teenagers because he could charge more, and forced them to have sex with up to 100 men each week.  To keep a fresh cycle of girls in Charlotte, Flores traded with traffickers, including relatives, in Washington DC and New York.  A staff attorney for Legal Aide of North Carolina said her office has seen a "sharp increase" in trafficking case referrals the last few months.  Authorities admit other pimps continue to prey on young girls from poor countries. Delbert Richburg, assistant special agent in charge of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement's Office of Investigations in Charlotte, was quoted as saying, "I don't think we really realized how big this was.  We're probably just scratching the surface."   
 
Human trafficking has been called one of the toughest crimes to tackle.  Criminal prosecution should empower victims and facilitate their healing process as they see the people who committed crimes against them punished. 
 
OPERATION CROSS COUNTRY
 
On 10.27.09 it was reported that federal officials saved 52 children, and nearly 700 people were arrested and charged in a nationwide crackdown on child prostitution.  Referring to the Operation Cross Country sweep, the president of the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children stated, "It's an incredible model.  I think its working.  We're having an enormous impact on this business."  Assistant Attorney General Lanny Breuer said, "It is repugnant that children in these times could be subjected to the great pain, suffering, and the indignity of being forced into sexual slavery for someone else's profit, but Cross Country IV has shown us that the scourge of child prostitution still exists on the streets of our cities."
 
Father, help the children to be able to sing like David sang:
"From violent men you have saved me."  II Sam 22:1-3

RESTORATION
 
Ric Lumbard, Center to Restore Trafficked and Exploited Children, says, "There are many facets to addressing Human Trafficking...from values to restoration.  This requires that a national grass roots RESTORATIVE MOVEMENT emerge, not just more social programming.  Programs are short-term band-aids; MOVEMENTS change culture.  We need both, one right now to stop the bleeding and the other to emerge to change our thinking."
 
At some point, if this is not stopped, you will be affected.  There is still much to be done to raise up abolitionists to bring justice to the captive.  It is time for everyone to get informed and become involved in some way.

Father, You are PULLING BACK THE DARK VEIL to reveal things that are
hidden, opening our eyes so we can SEE FROM YOUR PERSPECTIVE.  Help us not to turn our faces away, but to raise our gaze to look at You, and then begin to see through Your eyes, to see where and how You see us fitting into Your solution to the problem, COLLABORATING..with You and with others.
Psalm 139:12  "... the darkness shall not hide from You."
 
On page 36 of the November issue of Charisma magazine, there is an article entitled Everyday Abolitionists that tells of people who have full-time jobs in other professions but are "using their God-given gifts to make a difference and help stop the traffic."
 
One hosts "Save the Girls" yard sales to raise money for anti-trafficking organizations.  www.lucyannmall.com
 
Another started a ministry to pray for and counsel adult victims of human trafficking.  www.cinderellareleased.blogspot.com
 
One father ran 500 miles in chains to draw attention to child trafficking and raise funds to fight it.  www.run4therescue.com
 
Another launched a blog to promote awareness about human trafficking and share information and resources.  www.seasonoflight.blogspot.com
 
Still another started a blog to raise awareness and also to network with other abolitionists.  She also volunteers with International Justice Mission, connecting with churches and other organizations to move people toward action.  www.nowheretohide.com
 
Art students from Florida State University taught art therapy to rescued victims, who used visual art to express their experiences.
 
GET EDUCATED
 
If you don't have the opportunity to attend training, I encourage you to consider ordering a set of DVD's of the 7th Preventing Abuse conference recently held in the LA area.  This conference gave as clear an overview as I could possibly imagine, of all the different facets of human trafficking.
 
The cost of the 9 DVD's is $129.00, and they could easily be used in a group setting.  I also encourage you to ask to be on the e-mail list to stay abreast of current information regarding human trafficking.
 
Tony Nasiff
Cedars Cultural and Educational Foundation,
P.O. Box 2581,
Toluca Lake, CA, 91610
866-454-1776
TonyNasiff@cedarsfoundation.org
www.preventingabuse.org
www.cedarsfoundation.org
 
At the conference, Tony Nasiff said of human trafficking, "In the spiritual realm, the strategy is to destroy the souls of victims and nations.  Once innocence is lost the nation will be lost."
 
The battle for the "soul of our nation" is probably as intense as it has ever been.  Please join me as we let the Lord show us how to cooperate with Him to restore the souls of those who have been trafficked, and ultimately the soul of our beloved United States of America.
 
"When the Son of Man comes in His glory, and all the holy angels with Him, then He will sit on the throne of His glory. All the nations will be gathered before Him, and He will separate them...as a shepherd divides his sheep from the goats. And He will set the sheep on His right hand, but the goats on the left. Then the King will say to those on His right hand, 'Come, you blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world: for I was hungry and you gave Me food; I was thirsty and you gave Me drink; I was a stranger and you took Me in; I was naked and you clothed Me; I was sick and you visited Me; I was in prison and you came to Me.' Then the righteous will answer... 'Lord, when did we see You hungry and feed You, or thirsty and give You drink? When did we see You a stranger and take You in, or naked and clothe You? Or when did we see You sick, or in prison, and come to You?' And the King will answer...'Assuredly, I say to you, inasmuch as you have done it to one of the least of these, My brethren, you have done it unto Me.'"  Matthew 25: 31-40
 
 I'll add my "Amen" to Emma Thompson's statement.  "It's time for everybody to look at this and say the buying and selling of human beings for whatever reason is not appropriate in the 21st century and should never be allowed again!"
 
Pam

My appreciation to Keat and Judy Wade for adding the prayer points in red.